The Rose Child
by The Hallowed Cat
Summary: Micah, an apprentice alchemist and unlikely hero sets out to rescue the kidnapped princess Rosalia with the help of four magical gifts, a broken fairy and a handsome prince with a dependency upon metal. A re-working of Sleeping Beauty.
1. Chapter One

**Chapter one**

Once Upon a time there lived a king and queen who had ascended the thrown early. But, the king had been so intent upon fighting wars with neighbouring kingdoms, and the queen with holding royal banquets for the dignitaries of those kingdoms they weren't fighting that when the subject of royal succession was raised it was nigh on impossible for the queen to conceive, even though the King tried all of the suggested herbs and chants.

Medics examined the queen and declared her body far too old to be able to produce child, the queen being 53 seasons.

They suggested the king divorce her and take another wife (one physician even suggested his own daughter) but the king loved the queen to much so they considered bequeathing their thrown to the kingdom upon their northern border whose own queen had just given birth to a son.

The queen, whose name was Danica was not at all pleased with this idea and went walking in the palace rose gardens.

When she had married the king Danica had commissioned for a thousand rose bushes to be planted that bloomed each spring with poppy red petals and long, thin, vibrant green stems whose thorns where tiny and hardly sharp. Whenever she felt the pressures of courtly life Danica would walk in the gardens and admire how the flowers grow.

Walking along side the roses in full bloom Danica absentmindedly picked one and sniffed it, feeling relief wash over her as she smelt the familiar fragrance of the bloom, soft and delicate.

"Do you like the roses?" enquired a voice from behind her and Danica turned quickly coming nose to nose with a diminutive woman dressed all in green.

The queen knew all her household by sight and she had never seen this woman before in her life.

Her face was pointed and her eyes oval shapes with no pupil, only an iris of vivid green, her hair was cut short and golden brown, the colour of leaves in autumn from which sharp ears protruded. She was the size of a child but fully formed and her brilliant green dress was on closer inspection made of leaves sown together with creepers for stitching.

"Who are you?" Danica asked warily, stepping back slightly and tensing her body ready to run if she needed to.

The diminutive woman curtsied "I am Zea, your highness, a sprite of nature and I have been watching you and your husband. Why are you always so sad when you come to visit my roses?"

Danica's hand pressed against her stomach and she sighed, turning her head away from the strange person to study the castle wall as she spoke.

"I cannot produce an heir and our thrown will pass to the new born of our neighbours, who I care not for."

Zea nodded and reached her hand to pluck a flower from the nearest bush; it came away in her hand the petals silver and stem gold.

"Have your cook prepare this flower and eat it as your evening meal tonight, you shall bear child by the next full moon."

Danica took the rose in trembling hands and regarded it with awe; Zea turned from her, a smile upon her pointed face and began to walk away.

"Wait!" Danica called after her urgently "What can I give you in return?"

Zea looked over her shoulder, her smile wide "When the baby is born name it after a flower from my garden."

"I shall do."

As instructed the queen had the rose cooked and ate it as her supper that evening and by the next full moon she conceived a tiny child all made of petals and seeds and stem and thorns who was born 9 months later in the beginning months of spring - A minuscule girl born with her earth brown eyes open and her little mouth twisted tight like a rose bud; and the queen looked from her window and saw the red, red roses in the garden budding and remembered her promise. 

In the summer they named the princess Rosalia Galiena Lavinia and invited the royalty and dignitaries of the other nations to bask in their happiness.

The kingdom whose son had been considered as an heir came, although begrudgingly but went away in the knowledge their son would still be king- for the little princess would be his betrothed.

Zea was as at the celebrations, at the back of the hall with four other women-like creatures, each as strange and fantastical as she was.

Danica greeted them lastly of all her guests, a mixture of anticipation and fear making her wait, The king was being advised upon which of the royal falconers birds would best suit his daughter when she grow older and the queen became easily bored with talk of sports.

The sprites looked interesting, so slowly she drifted towards them across the crowded hall, making small talk until she reached them.

Zea took the queen's hand and kissed it before curtsying and introducing her companions whom each in turn curtsied before the queen.

Helice - a sprite of music, Kasmira- a sprite of weather, Kefira – a sprite of animals and lastly Lyris who was not a sprite but a muse, a most difficult and tempestuous spirit said to taunt poets and artists with inspiration only to steal it away later.

"We have each brought a gift for your daughter." Zea said, ushering the littlest sprite, Helice, forward.

Form the sprite of music, a little creature dressed all in golden cobwebs with diminutive blue butterflies in her cornflower hair there was a tiny silver flute no bigger than the queens little finger.

"Play upon it when she is restless, it will lull her to sleep." Helice explained, seeing the queen's mystified expression.

From Kasmira, a sprite bedecked in a radiant blue that became upon closer look an ever swirling dress of clouds, there was a necklace upon which hung a single crystallised rain drop.

"So she may call for me and whatever weather she might wish." The fairy said.

From Kefira sprite of animals who wore peacock feathers in her hair and a dress all of animal hide in tans and browns came a coat of cream and tawny griffin feathers.

"When she is cold wrap her in it, she'll not feel the bite of the cold then."

Lastly from Lyris, who looked positively plain in a violet smock with a mantle of knitted words, there was a bejewelled quill.

"When she begins her lessons have her write with this." She whispered, pressing the quill into the queen's hand; Dorothea felt a tingle run up her arm as she closed her fingers around it.

Zea came forward now a little shyly and quiet unsure, the others crowding around her to see what gift she'd brought.

"Your majesty…" She began but got no further for the air was suddenly as cold as ice and the baby, who had been sleeping in her lacy cot awoke with a with a scream and began to cry.

Danica tried to move but found her feet rooted to the floor as if frozen there, she looked about wildly and saw her guests with the same wild frightened expressions. Only the sprites seemed to still be able to move and they clustered protectively around the cradle, Helice trying fretfully to quiet the baby's cries.

The air began to hum as if filled with hundreds of bees and a man, crippled and hunchbacked hobbled forward from within the midst of the guests, Danica was filled with pity seeing him but he turned to look at her and the smile of something purely evil split his face.

Zea saw the smile too and strode forward to meet him, a glare upon her ethereal features.

"Be gone form here."

"But I am just an old man," the man said "Come to pay my respects to the princess."

"And I am a sprite, I see through your glamour." Zea hissed, she raised her hand and in a flash the old man was gone and replaced by a youthful demon from whose black curled head sprouted horns, he towered over Zea like a giant but his eyes were the same as hers, a pupilless poisonous green.

He laughed unpleasantly and bowed to Danica but his eyes never left Zea.

"I am Scipio and I have a gift for the child."

He pushed Zea aside in what seemed like a gentle movement but she fell crying out in pain and from where he had touched her the flesh was burned.

He came to the cradle and Helice who was holding the child put out her hand warningly but he ignored it, smiling a charming smile and produced a rose from his sleeve but the rose was black and wilted, with the stem twisted and rotting.

"For my bride." he said, placing the rose into the cradle.

"Bride?" Helice gasped, stepping away and holding the baby as close to her as she could.

"She is made with fairy magic; I can lay a claim to her." Scipio said, reaching out to take the baby from Helice.

"She is human!" Zea cried from the floor, Scipio turned and regarded her with a look that would have frozen blood.

"You made her from roses Zea, and from roses I will take her when she is of age." he said, his lips turning upwards in a cruel smile, then in the blink of an eye he vanished with nothing to suggest he had been there save for the flower in the cot.

Danica, finding herself free from whatever had petrified her to the ground rushed forward to the cot and picked up the dead rose, screaming in furry she threw it to the ground and crushed it under her shoe, sobbing as she did so.

Zea was helped up, her face white as chalk.

"You will have to salt the garden," she said softly "and burn all the rose or she will never be safe, I have been such a fool!"

"Zea…" Kasmira said warningly but Zea waved her away and took Danica's hands in hers, avoiding the queen's eyes.

"Rosalia is a fay-child; I used magic to help you conceive her and as a fay Scipio has the right to claim her under magic law but I did not think he had seen her!"

"Magic law?" Danica asked coldly, pulling her hands free from Zea's and regarding her with a hostile glare.

"We are not supposed to grant gifts to mortals," Helice said, coming to Zea's side, she still had the baby in her arms that she rocked gently. "if we do then the High Ones can take away what we gave the mortal."

"High Ones?"

"Magic users made completely of evil or completely of good, they made the rules and they punish those who break them."

"And this is my punishment; he's using my roses against me, you have to destroy the roses and I cannot come back when they aren't here but neither can he."

"Zea…" Danica whispered, reaching out her hand but the sprite turned quickly, her breathing uneven.

"Do it now." she whispered angrily, her voice leaving no room for argument.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter two **

Rosalia sat up in bed, gasping and sweating from half remembered dreams of nightmarish faces and ghastly creatures; slowly she lay back down staring at the white cotton drapes around her bed that hid the room beyond from her view.

She could see the shape of her nurse Nicolette silhouetted through them and closed her eyes, pretending sleep until the drapes where thrown wide and she was shaken gently.

"My lady." came the urgent whisper and Rosalia opened her eyes and smiled up into the kindly face of her nurse.

Nicolette was a small, plump woman in her early forties. Her hands where calloused from days of hard work and Rosalia could feel the calluses through the thin material of her bed dress, but her smile was soft and wrinkled her face in a pleasant way.  She wore always a simple spun blue dress with a white apron and a white cap over her dark brown hair.

"What time is it?" Rosalia asked.

"Nearly nine milady." Nicolette said, puling back the bed sheet and bundling it up under her arm as Rosalia wiggled her toes and shivered at the sudden cold. "And you have a visitor."

Rosalia sat up, suddenly interested and swung her legs over the bedside.

"Who?" she asked, watching as Nicolette dumped the bundle of sheeting into one corner for the washing girl to collect.

"A handsome young man who came late last night, another for your birthday." Nicolette said, opening the door to Rosalia's large oak wood wardrobe and pulling out a linen under corset.

"Handsome?" Rosalia asked, pressing for more details, fascinated. "how handsome?"

"Better looking than any a lad in this castle."

"Then I should wear a green dress today." Rosalia said decidedly, pulling her nightgown over her head and throwing it carelessly on the floor, Nicolette murmured disapprovingly and instructed Rosalia to stand up, helping to pull the under garment over her head and tightened the bodice to give the young girl a fashionable figure so that her green dress of velvet and silk fitted easily over it and was tied in the front with white ribbon.

Nicolette took a wooden comb from the night stand and brushed Rosalia's tangled red hair, twisting it into a plate and securing it with a white ribbon quite alike to the ones on her dress and patting Rosalia on the shoulder when's she finished.

Though Nicolette would never say, Rosalia's red hair had always been a worry to her, she had been employed as wet nurse to the girl and so had been close to the royal family from her first day and none of them had hair like Rosalia.

Some of the servants whispered that the queen had being having an affair with one of the yeomen guards and the princess was the result but the head cook maintained that Rosalia was a peasant born child the king had swapped for a still born as his own so the kingdom would have an heir. Nicolette thought these merely stories made up by those who had to much air in their heads but still the girl's hair was unusual.

Rosalia spun round once, the dress billowing out around her and then sat down quickly upon the bed, laughing.

Grumbling Nicolette got down upon her hands and knees to fish under the bed for a pair of shoes "Ah uh!" she crowed in triumph pulling the white cloth slippers out from where Rosalia had kicked them the last time she'd worn them.

Rosalia extended one foot and then the other for the shoes to be slipped on before jumping up.

"Where's is he waiting?" she asked excitedly, Nicolette put one hand on the bed to help her push herself up, wheezing as she did so.

"In the library."

"Thank you Nicolette."

Rosalia twirled once more happily before throwing open the door and bounding outside into the hall.

Nicolette collapsed onto the bed.

Rosalia was running so fast that she didn't have time to stop when she met Micah upon the stairwell; he was running too and they collided into each other, falling in a tangled heap upon the floor.

Micah disentangled himself first and offered a hand to help Rosalia from the floor which she accepted graciously.

Micah was unlike the other boys who lived and worked in the castle, his complexion was a scholarly pale, he was stick thin and several head taller than Rosalia whom he dwarfed. His black hair was trimmed short and mostly hidden by a brown leather cap, he wore a simple tunic and hoes with large leather boots for his enormous feet and carried on a belt around his waist a silver sickle – more for show than any work he might do in his position as apprentice alchemist but despite his oversized and awkwardly shaped body his eyes where bright sparkling blue and his smile disarmingly charming.

"Where were you off to so fast?" he asked her, pushing his hat back away from his eyes and looking at her pointedly.

"There is a guest in the library that I must go and greet." Rosalia said haughtily.

"Another one?" Micah asked grinning; he fished in his pocket and brought out two rather squashed violets. "An early birthday present, picked them last night when Bernard sent me out for more ladies fingers."

Rosalia took them from him almost reverently.

"There wonderful."

"Better when they weren't squashed." Micah said, shrugging as if it wasn't anything important that he had brought her something expressly forbidden by her mother.

Rosalia threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

"Can you hide them? I have to greet this guest and you know how mother gets about flowers." she asked, shoving them back into his hand.

"Of course." Micah said looking down at his hand, but when he looked up he found he had been talking to air as Rosalia was already gone.

Rosalia stood quietly in the doorway of the library; she felt she should announce her presence to the young man pacing the room but she could not make her mouth form words and her fingers clung stubbornly to the doorframe.

He was indeed handsome, Nicolette had not lied about that, his face was like the cut marble of a statue, strong and defined. He was swathed in rich colours of purple and red which suited him well and made him look gallant

She stood for what seemed to her like ages until he finally caught sight of her and clapped his hands together delightedly.

"Princess Rosalia! Come here, I've been so anxious to meet you."

"Sir," Rosalia said, tugging her fingers from the doorframe and curtsying "I have not had the pleasure of being introduced."

The man smiled and crossed the room till he stood with her in the doorway; he took both her hands and led her into the middle of the room, admiring her.

"I am Adriel, Prince Adriel." the man said, as if it had completely slipped his mind "Turn around that I might see you properly."

Amused and perplexed Rosalia turned round slowly and laughing while Adriel looked her up and down, nodding appreciatively.

Finally he took her hands, again smiling.

"You are sixteen?" he asked her to which she smiled and shook her head.

"Soon, in a few days in fact."

"Very good, you will do well."

"Do well for what?"

Adriel's brow furrowed slightly, marring his otherwise perfect features.

"Has no one told you? We are to be married, you are my betrothed."

Rosalia pulled her hands away from his, her face drained completely of colour.

"Betrothed?" she spat the word as if it was acid on her tongue and it hurt to speak it "But I don't know you."

"You shall have time to learn more of me after our wedding; you shall come to my kingdom with me." Adriel smiled and made to retake her hand but Rosalia backed further away.

"Leave my home? I would not! I will not!" her face flushed a hot red and her mouth twisted into an ugly frown "and I will not marry you!"

Adriel laughed and Rosalia knew then that however handsome and charming he might appear she despised him.

"It's not as if either of us has a choice; our parents decided this years ago, I am just trying to make the best of the situation." and with that he grabbed her shoulders and kissed her, his mouth firm against her unyielding one.

Rosalia tensed, shocked and angry; she raised her foot and stamped down hard on his toes, Adriel let out a howl of pain and pushed her away.

Not waiting for him to recover from the surprise or the pain, Rosalia ran from the room and up, for if she'd run downstairs she'd have met with the kitchens and servants to hinder her escape but if she ran up there was no end to where she could hide.

She reached the alchemists tower, her feet leading her there automatically and she thought about alerting Micah to her plight but as she touched the wooden door that lead to his master's laboratory something caught her eye.

The worn tapestry that hung upon the far wall was dislodged slightly and the wall behind it was showing, but there was more than just bare wall there.

There was a door.

A half open door.

Her mind worked fast, setting out the plan. If she hide in wherever that staircase went and pulled the tapestry so it covered the door then no one; especially Prince Adriel would know where she'd gone.

A few minuets later Micah opened the door of the alchemist's room to see a perfectly blank far wall with a slightly dislodged tapestry.

Rosalia climbed the twisting staircase one hand on the stone wall for balance and the other holding her skirts bundled up in case she trip over them. She wondered how soon the staircase would end; it felt like the climb to the battlements that went on and on with the captain of the guard's continuous prattle about what his men where doing to protect the royal family.

Memories of those boring long afternoons spent with the smell of leather polish and the wind whipping about her painfully made Rosalia stomp up the next few steps, so lost in memories was she that Rosalia stopped counting steps and the ending of the staircase took her quiet by surprise.

There was no door, just a doorway that lead to a Spartan room with only a large wood table, two little wooden chairs and an old hunched man sitting in one, the one facing away from her.

Rosalia didn't hesitate her, her feet lead her inside and she took the seat across from the old man.

"Princess." the man said in a voice like gravel.

"Sir." Rosalia nodded a greeting to him; she did not feel in anyway afraid of the strange man or the unexplained room even though she knew she should be. 

The old man reached out one knurled hand to touch hers, smiling as he did so and Rosalia took his hand in hers smiling back at him softly.

"I have often hoped to meet you again," the man said quietly, "you've grown quite lovely since the last time I saw you." he drew his hand away from hers, and leaned forward studying her face. "It is you're birthday is soon?"

Rosalia smiled happily "Yes, I'll be sixteen."

The old man sat back chuckling softly to himself "A full grown lady. I have something for you." His hand reached into the ragged coat he wore and drew out a wrapped package from within which he pushed across the table towards her, Rosalia took it and unwrapped it slowly, feeling the paper crackle beneath her fingers as she pushed it aside.

A beautiful flower lay in the nest of paper – it had a blood red bloom that smelt sweet and strong even though she had not buried her nose in its petals, a long green stem with tiny leaves curling up already even though the flower could only have been picked a few hours ago.

"What kind of flower is this?" Rosalia asked awed.

"It's a rose," the old man said, watching her hands reach out but stop just short of touching. "pick it up."

Rosalia's hand reached around it and she gave a yelp, pulling her hand back.

"It has thorns." she whispered as her vision began to swim and she swooned forward, hitting the table and before the darkness came over her she thought she saw the old man changed to some horned creature that smiled in a way that reminded her of her nightmarish dreams and made her welcome the darkness.

Danica put down the book upon courtly etiquette she had been reading, having finished it and stood up.

"I'm going to lie down Anna." she instructed her ladies maid who bobbed to her as she swept past with a hushed "yes ma'm" on her lips.

Danica walked quickly through the passageway and pushed open the door to her solar, bathing it in shadowy light from the hallway. 

When she saw what was inside her room she let out a muffled cry of shock.  

A thin, child-like creature was sitting at her bedside table, watching her reflection in the large mirror with interest; one palm pressed against the glass. She did not turn to look at Danica's cry but fixed the queen's reflection with a steely gaze.

"Zea!"


	3. Chapter Three

 **Chapter three**

"Zea."

Softer this time and the sprite turned her head, sombrely and regarded Danica with one ghoulish green eye; the other eye, or at least the socket where it should have been looked despondently at the room in general.

Danica closed her eyes quickly, suppressing a shudder and then hurriedly opened them again.

"Your face." she said softly and Zea cast her reflection a passing look and shuddered, shaking her head to indicate she didn't wish to talk about it and turned her face back towards Danica.

"Your majesty." She inclined her head and Danica thought she saw for a second red, blistering skin peeking from beneath the brown leafy gown covering her body but only for a second because she'd suddenly realised what would have brought Zea to the castle.

"Flowers," Dorothea whispered in a hoarse, horrified voice. "Who has brought flowers here? Where is Rosalia? Where is my daughter?"

Zea raised her hand, stopping Dorothea's flow of words.

"She is already gone."

"How can you know?" Danica asked disbelievingly. She reached out for the bell rope to call the guard and organize a search but Zea stood up and strode across the room, throwing open the drapes and pointing.

"That is how I know!"

Danica fallowed the path of her pointing finger and looked out onto a forest of briers ten feet high, woven tightly together and a horrible rotted brown colour.

"He has built that wall," Zea said, dropping her hand to her side and glaring out at the forest of thorns encasing them. "So we cannot fallow him and take her back."

…..

Micah elbowed past the kitchen boy, trod determinedly upon a scullery maid's foot and squeezed past two gossiping ladies to claim himself a place in front of the large crowd of servants and courtiers that had gathered at the king's request in the grand hall.

The king was slumped in his thrown, head buried in his hands and the queen looking flushed and angry was speaking to a creature that appeared to be neither adult nor child.

Micah wondered if there was to be some type of entertainment but at that moment the captain of the guard came pushing through the throng, panting, and knelt at the dais of the kings thrown.

"It knots together." he said breathily and Micah furrowed his brow unsure what that could mean. "Four of my men are still trapped within it and cannot cut themselves out."

"What are you're swords made of?" the creature asked hurriedly and the captain looked puzzled.

"Iron." he said at last perplexed.

The creature scoffed "Fool! Trying to cut magic with iron."

"Magic?" Bernard, the castle alchemist and Micah's teacher, questioned. He was a fat man in a black cap and with a silver sickle on the belt on his waist and he waved his arms as he talked, growing angrier and angrier "Your highnesses what is this talk of magic? If you have any questions about magic you should have informed me and not this hay-penny trickster."

"I am not a trickster as you assume, my name is Zea and I am a sprite." The creature said with quiet fury, its one eye fixed maliciously upon his teacher who was suddenly frightened and unsure of himself. 

"You can't be!" Micah said suddenly and then was aware of all the eyes of the room locked upon him.

"I mean," he continued embarrassed by his rashness "you can't be a sprite because they have wings and they are beautiful."

The creature, Zea, laughed humourlessly and smiled at him.

"And I am non of those things, am I," she said cheerlessly and then held out her hand, beckoning him forward and Micah slowly, carefully walked towards her until he was close enough for to grab his arm "How would you like to be a frog?"

"I wouldn't." Micah said truthfully and she let go of him, smiling and then turned back to look at the congregation of worried faces.

"The Princess Rosalia had been kidnapped," She said, ignoring the gasps that fallowed her announcement "by a magic user who has created the forest of briers around the castle to keep you from finding her again."

Micah shook his head, refusing to believe what he was hearing and hugged himself tightly, staring at the floor.  

"Can't we send the army?" one worried man asked.

"The thorns will attack any human who goes into the briers; a great number of men would only enrage it."

"Then how do we rescue my daughter?" the king asked, razing his head and looking at her despairingly.

"You don't" Zea said "I do, the thorns will not attack me because I am fae."

"But what of the magic user?" Dorothea asked. "Will he attack you?"

"He has already tried." Zea said and her hand touched briefly upon her face and scarred eye socket before she shook her head and dropped her hand back down to her side.

"Then I will go with you to protect you." a man who had been standing with his arms folded, surveying the proceedings with a interested air stepped forward and bowed to Zea "It would be my honour."

"And who are you?" she asked.

"I am Prince Adriel of Nixlia and Princess Rosalia's betrothed, I consider it my duty to help you rescue her."

"Betrothed!" Micah struggled with the word. "Rosalia doesn't have a betrothed; she's too young to be married."

"Child." the queen whispered, reaching out to him but Micah drew back horrified.

"But…" he stammered unsure what to say, knowing his out burst would already have cost him and the other things he wanted to say that were on the tip of his tongue could have him whipped. "Please I..."

"Your majesties" Adriel interjected. "I would not let this rude and uncouth boy speak to you in such a way."

"Your majesties I would not let your daughter marry this man." Micah said venomously, glaring at Adriel.

"And what right do you have to say whom Rosalia should marry?"

"I…I'm her friend" Micah said quietly and winced at Adreil's harsh barking laughter that fallowed that and the tittering giggles of the court. "She trusts me!"

"Stop laughing." Zea commanded softly, her tone leaving no room for argument; one by one the laughter died away till the room was left in chilly silence.

"Rosalia does trust me." Micah said miserably and Zea nodded.

"I believe you and I would be honoured if you would come with me to find her."

"My Lady," Adriel said horrified. "I do not think that would be wise,"

"I think it would be." Zea said and after that there was no argument from anyone.


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter four **

Micah sat unenthusiastically upon a pile of helmets, head in hands in the middle of the armoury watching Adriel inspect a sword and then replace it into the hold with a long suffering sigh.

"Everything is iron." He complained and Micah rolled his eyes.

"What else do you make swords and amour from?"

Zea appeared round the door, already clothed in a brown hooded cloak that swept the floor after her as she walked.

"Micah," she said, motioning him to the door. "Can I speak with you a moment?"

"Certainly." Micah said, grateful from the distraction of Adreil's constant grumbling. He fallowed Zea out of the armoury and along the hallway until they reached a door through which Zea led him where out of earshot from anyone who might listen to them. Zea turned and looked him in the eye unblinkingly and Micah suddenly wished he had stayed with Adriel.

"I need for you to look after something for me," Zea whispered, she set down a pack upon the table and took out four strange and unconnected objects – a coat of feathers, a jewelled quill, a necklace and a tiny silver flute "I cannot carry them upon my person and I do not trust prince Adriel as far as I could throw him."

"I'll gladly look after them for you." Micah said, chest swelling with pride that she trusted him.

"Good lad." Zea said, patting his hand.

Micah placed the strange objects reverently into his travelling pack and then slung it carelessly over his shoulder, turning to leave the room but Zea caught his arm.

"I know you are the one who brought flowers into the castle." she said.

Micah nodded not understanding what flowers had to do with anything, his brow creasing in confusion.

"I brought Rosalia some violets for her birthday." he said and Zea visibly flinched at his words.

"Those flowers allowed me to come to the castle but they also allowed her kidnapper to come as well." she said wretchedly, turning away from Micah's aghast expression and sweeping back down the corridor to the armoury. 

Micah fallowed her, felling as if the world had just collapsed about his ears and stood dejectedly in the door way.

Adriel was becoming almost hysterical shifting through pile after pile of amour.

"We'll all be killed," he said holding up a vest of chain mail then throwing it back down. "Nothing to protect us and nothing to fight with."

"You cannot fight the thorns," Zea soothed "there may well be other things that you shall need iron for but you cannot take much, just your sword."

Adriel put his hand upon his sword hilt, visibly calmed by this.

"Well that's fine then." he said smiling and Micah sneered.

How could Zea allow such an amour-dependent man to be her bodyguard?

Micah decided then and there that he would have to be superior to Adriel, that whatever Adriel did he would do better and faster and prove himself, he would protect Zea and she would forgive him for bringing the flowers into the castle and he would be redeemed.

The thorns had attacked them the moment they walked through the opening Zea had conjured.

The briers surrounded them, clutching at clothing and clawing at faces until each was bleeding and ragged, Adriel muttering oaths under his breath and Micah's desire to be Zea's hero dampening with each scratch.

They rounded a corner and Micah stopped dead, his breath catching in his throat and bile rising into his mouth, tasting like acid.

A man was hanging in mid air, suspended through a hundred different places by sharp green thorns that glistened evilly with the poor mans blood.

"My god." Adriel whispered, stepping closer and Micah looked down to where the droplets of blood had collected to form a pool, and threw up.

"Is he dead?" Zea asked, peering upwards with morbid curiosity.

As if to answer the question the man moaned and opened his eyes, his head lolling to one side and glazed gaze staring through them.

"He's a solider;" Micah said, wiping his mouth on the back of his sleeve and spitting a few times to get rid of the horrible taste in his mouth "Look at his amour."

The man did indeed where a full suit of amour emblazoned with the royal coat of arms, Micah realised he must have been one of the Knights sent into the thorns to track the princesses kidnapper.

He wondered, horror-struck, if there where any other knights trapped in such a way.

"The thorns attacked him" Zea said.

"We have to cut him down!" Adriel said drawing his sword. "He'll die if we don't"

He started forward and the thorns began to swarm towards him up Micah throw out his arm and grabbed him, stopping him.

"He's dying anyway," Micah said in a soft voice. "Put your sword away or the thorns will strike you as well"

"I have to!" Adriel started but Micah yanked the sward from his hand and threw it to the ground.

"No you don't," he growled, shoving Adriel away "You're supposed to be protecting us, not putting us in danger."  
Adriel bent quickly to retrieve his sward and waved it threateningly at Micah but Zea gently rested her hand on Adreil's arm and lowered his arm forcefully but softly, smiling at him all the time.

"I have something that will take his pain away," she said, taking from the fold of her cloak a small drawstring bag which she opened and took a few crushed brown leaves from within. "This plant will make him sleep through his death, I could give him that."

"He'll still die up there!" Adriel cried, pointing to where the man was suspended "No one should die like that."

He sounded so pitiful and distressed by the poor mans plight that Micah felt sorry for him, he reached out and placed a hand on Adriel's shoulder in a gesture of amity.

"I'm so sorry Adriel," he said truthfully "but we'll be attacked otherwise."

Adriel looked up at the man, his uncertainty written obviously upon his face and then he sheathed his sward and held his hand out to Zea.

"Give me the bag." he said and Zea handed it to him wordlessly.

Adriel walked forward slowly but the thorns ignored him, instead curling tighter round there prize and Adriel was able to get close enough to pry the man's mouth open. Foamy blood trickled out and onto Adriel's hand; the young man grimaced but opened the bag and took some of the leaves, they crackled in his fingers and he stuffed them quickly into the mans mouth and closed his jaw, watching as the knights body made a feeble attempt to chew the leaves.

The man held in the thorns twitched once, twice and then fell lax and Adriel drew away, wiping the knight's blood on his breaches.

 "Let's move on." he said solemnly, they began to move away and Micah thought he saw Adriel quickly wipe his hand across his eyes as if brushing away tears.

Micah couldn't be sure he hadn't been.


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five **

When they broke through the nest of thorns the sun was already beginning to set and the castle was obscured by the ever growing briers. If they did not break the magic enchantment cast over the place, Micah thought with a dull sickness in the pit of his stomach, then no traders could get through, or the peasants who herded sheep and grew vegetables for the castle and everyone inside would starve.

He thought of his master Benardo, his fat limbs growing lax and bony as he wasted away. Of his own mother, sat at her loom in the queen's lacing room becoming gaunt and skeletal-like as she worked and waited for food that would never come.

He wondered if she even knew he had left the palace.

He had only caught glances of her in the corridors or at banquets and state occasions over the years but he had to really memories of her or any true contact with her.

At age four he had been entrusted to the care of the head-groom but Micah had been too frightful to be around the horses and he did not have the noble blood to train as a page or knight. The kitchens had not wanted him and he was to clumsy and low classed to be a playmate of the princess'.

Benardo, who had been younger at the time and much thinner, had taken him for an apprentice, and Micah had excelled at his work.

He liked the quietness of it. That he was never disturbed when he went looking for plants or special herbs, and that, when Princess Rosalia had been sick, he had be allowed to sit by her bedside as she was nursed back to health.

He thought he had fallen in love with her then, as he watched her toss and turn in the large bed looking small and feverish. When she'd woken they'd talked and he'd found himself willing to do anything for her – he had stolen her cakes and sweet meats from the kitchens when she was allowed only broths and brought her books to read from the library when she should have been resting

And when she begged him for flowers, although it was law that they where not allowed inside the castle he had smuggled some in for her, hidden underneath the herbs that would cure her.

He hand only brought a small clump of daisies but she had been delighted, her smile enchanting and Micah had vowed to see more of that smile; in truth it had been his undoing.

He had begun to lose concentration and become reckless in his law braking and, because of his foolishness in loving someone so far above his station; she had been taken from him by something foul and evil.

And even if their rescue was successful she would be taken from him again, by Adriel and then there would be nothing he could do if that came to pass.

Micah shook his head angrily to rid himself of the thoughts and hugged himself against the bitter chill he felt sinking into his bones. It was beyond stupid of him to think the way he did. He would do better to think of rescue then his own inevitably unhappiness.  But, never before had he been faced with the mortality of his friendship with Rosalia and it scared him in ways he would rather not imagine.

In the end, one way or another, their companionship and his love had to die, whatever the outcome of this fateful expedition, and Micah would have to accept that, however much it pained him to do so.

Zea stopped, holding up her hand in a motion for him to do the same and Micah looked around wondering why they had stopped. There was nothing very unusual about the place they had halted, it seemed simply to be another part of the path – enclosed by woods on one side and a shear mountain drop on the other.

Micah cast a quick look downwards and felt beads of sweat break on his forehead and run down his face, his vision swam dizzily and he stepped backwards, closer to the safety of the woods and the ground at his feet – not a hundred feet drop away.

Adreil's hand grasped him and hauled him upright and Micah realised he'd been fainting, falling to the ground as the fear overwhelmed him.

"What's wrong?" Adriel asked, worry tinting his voice and Micah felt the sickness beginning to swim inside his stomach again. It wasn't right for Adriel to be kind and honourable and it wasn't right that Micah felt like he could trust him. Angrily he pushed the Prince away and, clumsy footed, made his way to the nearest tree and leant against it, breathing rapid and uncontrolled.

He could still feel Adreil's question hanging in the air, unanswered and Zea's one keen eye probing him for the response.

"I…the height does something to me, " He said softly, refusing to look at either of them, "I can't…can't look down and I feel…" he trailed off not really sure how to put his fear into words without sounding feeble.

There was silence for a few moments and Micah imagined the glances they must be sharing – how ashamed they must be for allowing him to come with them when he couldn't look at a dying man or look down without having being nauseated.

"It doesn't matter." Zea's voice penetrated the self-loathing voice in Micah's head. "Where we are going you will not need to worry about heights."

Micah drew away from the tree and looked round cautiously, Adriel was pointedly not looking at him and Micah knew he was embarrassed by the situation, embarrassed by Micah, but Zea looked straight at him, her eye unblinking and Micah found himself sweating again.

"What do you mean?" Micah asked slowly. Perhaps she was so revolted with him she was sending him away, and she and Adriel would continue without him – he shuddered slightly at the thought.

Zea did not answer his question directly. Instead she stood past him, pushing her way through the trees and bushes, fallowed by Micah and Adriel,  until she reached a ring of stones in the middle of a clearing.

These where perfectly ordinary stones, small, round, grey pebbles that lay in the overgrown grass and looked as if a child had dropped them when playing a game. Zea dropped to her knees a little before the stones, her head bowed and her voice a low growl as she spoke words that where unintelligible, her hand reaching forward and fingers fumbling as she grasped the nearest stone and held it tightly.

Adriel ventured forward but Micah grabbed his shoulder and held him back.

"That is a Fairy Ring. Any man who steps inside it is carried of to the fae land," He whispered fretfully, watching as each stone in turn glowed a cold, grey light. "You could be gone for a century and think it only a day."

Zea stood up suddenly, the first stone she had touched held in the palm of her hand. She pocketed it and then looked to the two of them watching her with a mixture of awe and fear.

 "This," she gestured to the Fairy Ring. "is the entrance to Scipio's lands, he is the one who holds Rosalia captive and he will be expecting us so we must be very careful. I have taken a stone from the Fairy Ring – when Rosalia is safe we can use it to safely transport us back to the human world, it will only work once though, I only had magic enough for that, so we must stay together."

"Of course." Adriel mumbled, shrugging off Miach's hand and striding forward. Micah fallowed him, feelings of  trepidation swelling up inside of him, into the Fairy Ring.

He felt Zea take his hand and then everything around him was dark.

Micah opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. His whole body throbbed painfully as if he had been a jousting target and his head felt as if it had been caved in two.

He sat up slowly and then buried his head in his hands, moaning faintly. Something touched his leg and Micah yelped, rolling away from the creature he imagined lurking in the darkness when a gloved hand clamped across his mouth.

"Shut up, will you!" Adriel's exasperated voice hissed in his ear and Micah nodded quickly. He was released and took a few, fast, gulping breaths of air before turning to face Adriel, his hands searching until they found the other man in the darkness and clung to him.

"Where's Zea?" he asked. Another hand touched him, this time un-gloved and soft on his cheek, and turned his head.

"I'm here," Zea said and Micah brought his own hand up to feel her face, not completely trusting his eyes in the darkness yet. "You've been asleep for a long while, the magic effected you badly."

"I feel like I'm dying."

"That's to be expected." Zea said. There was a rustled of material as Zea stood up, and her hands guided Micah up until he was standing, and, as is eyes slowly became accustomed to the gloom, he realised they where in some sort of cave made of the same grey stone that had made the Fairy Ring.

"This is where Scipio lives?" he asked.

Zea gave a bark of mirthless laughter.

"I wish, this is the outskirts of his land. He controls vast areas of the Fea kingdom, we have a long walk ahead of us."

"Then we should get going."  Adriel said. He stalked a head of them and Micah heard Zea sigh softly before she wrapped her arms around him and help him stagger forward over the rocky ground.

They walk for someway before Zea stopped, pulling away from Micah who found himself steady on his feet, sniffing the air and pulling a disgusted face. Adriel had also stopped, he turned and gave her a worried look.

"Did something die here?" he asked.

"I don't think its dead yet." Zea whispered, terrified.

Something great and terrible leered up over them, snorting and snarling. It had grey leathery looking skin and smelt like rotting flesh so that Micah had to cover his mouth with his hand or be sick it was so nauseating.  The creature had the face and tusk of a wild pig but the body of a giant man.

"What is it?" Adriel whispered, his hand instinctively going to his sword hilt.

"A troll." Zea whispered back, eyes wide.

The troll hearing them swung one huge hand out, clipping Zea and sending her slamming into the caves wall.

She staggered up, clutching at her side and the troll came at her again, roaring. Adriel drew his sword and charged forward hacking at the trolls back, his sword splintered pieces of metal but the troll suffered nothing. It seemed only mildly irritated by the constant attack.

It turned and grabbed Adriel, pulling the sword from his hand and with an unnerving ease bent it in two.

Micah stood, to frightened to move or to run and could only watch the trolls clawed hand tighten slowly around Adriel who squirmed and twisted – gasping for breath.

"Micah!" Zea screamed and the young man looked at her, on the floor bleeding from a wound on her side from when the troll's claws had slashed her and struggling to climb to her feet, "Micah, the flute!"

Confused Micah pulled the pack from his back and tugged the tiny silver flute from within it. He held it out to her but she shook her head.

"Play it." She gasped.

Micah pressed the tiny instrument to his lips and blew a sharp, high pitched note. The trolls head came up and he dropped Adriel, who scrabbled away to Zea's side, and started forward to Micah, growling.

Micah's fingers moved of their own accord, playing an old lullaby as his mouth went dry and his mind seized up in terror, positive he was about to die.

The troll stopped mid-charge and stood, swaying slightly until suddenly with a keening wail it toppled sideways onto the floor, dust rising in clouds around it.  Micah threw down the flute and covered his face as the dust cascaded over him.

When the dust had settled he was confronted by a coughing Adriel and a far too pale Zea.

"Is it dead?" Adriel asked between hacking coughs but a large snore from the troll answered his question.

"Sleeping, the flute puts things to sleep" Zea answered the next question before he had asked it.

"I'll kill it then" Adriel said. He bent to the floor to pick up his sword but suddenly saw it lying forlornly amongst the stones and dust bent double and picked it up despondently. "Evil thing"

Zea reached out and gripped his arm.

"No, it wouldn't work anyway. Iron could not penetrate its skin."

"Then how do I kill it?"

"You don't, Micah does." They both looked at Micah who shook his head.

"I don't have a weapon."

"Your sickle?" Adriel asked, pointing to it.

"It's decorative," Micah protested, "It's made of silver and couldn't cut a spiders web."

"Try it." Zea prompted.

Nervously Micah drew the sickle from his belt and advanced towards the troll. He knelt besides it and raised the sickle height, he gave Zea one worried look and brought his hand down in one swift movement that decapitated the troll.

Both men gazed wide eyed and opened mouthed at the horrible troll head as it rolled in the dust while Zea nodded, grimly happy.

"Good," she said "good."


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six.**

Zea bid them rest after their fight with the troll even though Adriel did not want to rest in case there were anymore fowl creatures lurking in the save, and Micah insisted upon taking watch while the other two slept – they had both been hurt in the fight and he had slept long enough when the magic had knocked him out.

After much argument Adriel agreed begrudgingly but he refused to let Micah lay out the bedding they had brought in their packs; he moved away from the others and began to set up camp for himself, ever so often casting furious looks back over his shoulder.

"Ignore him." Zea said softly, her hand still pressed to her side where the tolls huge hand had knocked into her.

"Oh, I am." Micah said coldly, looking at Adreil's back as the Prince laid out the bedroll, he glanced back to Zea and his eyes lingered upon her side where she was still holding herself. "How badly did it hurt you?"

"Not much." Zea said but she winced as she moved to sit down upon a nearby rock.

Micah regarded her for a moment, taking in her build and her stature – it did not look like sprites where built much different from humans and he knew about the human anatomy and how to heal it.

"Let me look," he said. "It's what I am apprenticed for, after all."

Zea seemed uncertain for a moment but then the uncertainty faded from her face and she grasped the hem of her dress, pulling the leaf-sown garment over her head.

Micah blushed, unsure where to look because underneath her simple robe Zea was completely naked.

Micah had not seen many women naked only two others in fact.

Rosalia, once, when she'd been feverish and stripped for an ice bath. Her maid Nicolette had not been fast enough in shoving him outside the princess's room and he had seen her, pallid skin glistening with sweat and long, poppy-red hair cascading over her shoulders and down her back.

The other had been Maud, one of the washing girls who'd come to him for help when she was with child and did not want Benardo, Micah's teacher and master, to know. Benardo would have unquestionably told her Mistress and then Maud would lose her place, being unmarried as she was. Micah had given her poisonous herbs to educe a miscarriage and arranged for her to have some time to recover and grieve.

The first time had been so quick and the second carried out in secret with each party jumping at any sound that now with Zea perfectly naked and untroubled Micah was suddenly flushed and flustered.

He glanced quickly over to see if Adriel was looking and to make him shut his eyes if he was but the prince was already asleep, his bravado only a cover for his tiredness so Micah turned back to Zea, swallowed his nervousness and lent forward.

His hands gently pressed into her side, feeling the bones there for any breaks, bruising was already coming up; horrid and purple upon her autumnal leaf skin.

"You've got some bones broken." He said in a half whisper because he'd just noticed something else, something that made him sick to his stomach. All the way up Zea's back the skin was red and blistered in horrible chris-cross patents. Micah recognised the paten and the blistering; his own back had been the same way over the years from the whippings he had received for being lazy or rude or any other sins he committed in the service of Benardo.

One hand of its own accord touched the sore red skin and Zea hissed, eyes sliding shut and face contorting.

"Who did this to you?" Micah asked, trembling with scarcely suppressed rage.

"The High Ones." Zea chocked out between tears of disgrace and pain that welled up under her closed eyelids and tricked down her scared face. "My punishment, they never fade and always ache."

"Your eye as well?"

Zea nodded. "My eye as well."

"Why? What could you have done that would warrant such punishment?"

"I helped to create life. I made a rose seed grown into a human child."

Micah nodded slowly, cold understanding dawning on him.

"Rosalia. Everyone says she's not the king's daughter but I never believed them." He gabbled quickly, remembering palace gossip. Everyone from the head cook to the kings most trusted nobleman had a story about Rosalia's true parentage but none as fanciful or as true as the one Zea now span.

"She's a rose, a rose made human, and every year she steals more of my magic to stay human, to grow old."

"I'm sorry."

"I do not mind, I would gladly do it again a thousand times." Zea said, picking up her dress and shrugging it back on over her bruised and ruined body.

"I have powder that will help you're bones to heal." Micah said, taking a small draw stringed bag from the belt around his waist. "Just put the powder in water and drink it once a day."

"Thank you." Zea said. She took the little bag from him and fixed it to the belt she herself wore tied round her middle. Micah did not think, after knowing now that she wore nothing beneath her dress, that he would ever be able to look her in the eye again.

He studied the ground carefully, felling something more had to be said on the subject. The unfairness of it all overwhelmed him and he reached out a hand grasping the sprite's small hands and clasped them for a moment before letting go.

"I am sorry, Zea." He said, trailing his fingers at the dust around her feet.

The sprite smiled softly.

"I know." She said sadly and glanced across at the snoring bundle that was Adriel in the corner "I'm sorry too."

Micah looked at her questioningly but she shook her head and they sat in the silence broken only occasionally by the snuffling snores of Adriel and Micah glared at the stonewall feeling suddenly very young and completely hopeless.


End file.
